19 June 2008

What the hell?!!!

They made a pact to all get pregnant and raise their babies together. No, this was not some grown-up decision of a group of women who are adults but grew up together. The issue is that they are no older than 16 years old. At least 17 girls. Many of the girls in the school who went asking for pregnancy tests were disappointed upon finding out that they were not pregnant. Others gave each other high fives and started planning baby showers when they found out they were pregnant.

One chick went as far as enlisting a homeless man to impregnate her.

The school is in a largely Catholic area where they stop teaching sex ed freshman year, and where young people seem to admire the unconditional love a baby might provide. From the Time Magazine article:

By May, after nurse practitioner Kim Daly had administered some 150 pregnancy tests at Gloucester High's student clinic, she and the clinic's medical director, Dr. Brian Orr, a local pediatrician, began to advocate prescribing contraceptives regardless of parental consent, a practice at about 15 public high schools in Massachusetts. Currently Gloucester teens must travel about 20 miles (30 km) to reach the nearest women's health clinic; younger girls have to get a ride or take the train and walk. But the notion of a school handing out birth control pills has met with hostility. Says Mayor Carolyn Kirk: "Dr. Orr and Ms. Daly have no right to decide this for our children." The pair resigned in protest on May 30.

Maybe the kids' parents are ok with becoming grandparents so early. After all, that is better (to them) than teaching them about safe sex or giving them some type of birth control methods or taking care of their sexual health.

Gloucester is a small fishing village that has suffered many financial hardships in the last decade.

It is also located in a very liberal state and the immediate area is also heavily Catholic. These children are not ostracized for becoming pregnant, they and their child are taken care of and their education continues unabated.

There is very little negative with becoming pregnant and a single parent for them. To me, its a cluster that depends on many local factors..not the US norm.

But it is worrisome and I hope they figure out what is driving this young women to behave in this manor.